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Ohio Democrats Win at Top U.S. Court in Voting Fight (Update3)

By Greg Stohr

Oct. 17 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Supreme Court, siding with Democrats, freed Ohio officials from a lower court order that might have limited participation by new voters in next month's presidential election.

Today's ruling means Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner doesn't have to provide county election boards with lists of new registrants whose information doesn't match up with government databases. A federal trial judge had ordered Brunner, a Democrat, to supply the lists by today.

The Supreme Court said Republicans who sued Brunner ``are not sufficiently likely to prevail'' because the federal law they invoked doesn't authorize private suits. The two-page unsigned order was issued on behalf of the full court, without any published dissent.

Brunner said the judge's order could have affected as many as 200,000 Ohioans, potentially forcing them to cast provisional ballots instead of regular ballots. Democrats likely would have been disproportionately affected by the judge's order because of the party's efforts to register new voters this year.

Ohio is a crucial state for Republican presidential candidate John McCain in his race against Democrat Barack Obama. Without Ohio's 20 electoral votes, McCain would have to carry every other state that voted for George W. Bush in 2004, plus one that voted Democratic. Recent polls indicate Obama has pulled even or ahead in Ohio, a state Bush won by less than 118,000 votes four years ago.

Weeding Out Fraud

The Ohio Republican Party accused Brunner of ignoring her duty under a federal law to help weed out fraudulent registrations. The dispute was one of several fights that have made Ohio a center of legal controversy leading up to the Nov. 4 election.

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis in a statement said Brunner is seeking to ``minimize the level of fairness and transparency in this election.''

Brunner ``has fought at every opportunity the appeals of the people of the state and the county boards of election to provide an oversight of this election so it's done in a free, fair and open matter,'' said John McClelland, spokesman for the Ohio Republican Party.

Democrats hailed the ruling. The decision ``allows Ohio to move about the business of ensuring a free, fair, open and honest election without the threat of widespread voter suppression by the GOP,'' Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern said in a statement.

`Myriad Discrepancies'

Brunner was elected secretary of state in 2006. She succeeded Republican Ken Blackwell, who was the target of Democratic criticism leading up to the 2004 election.

Brunner said in court papers that preliminary analyses showed ``myriad discrepancies'' in voter information. ``Many of those discrepancies bear no relationship whatsoever to a voter's eligibility to vote a regular, as opposed to a provisional, ballot,'' she said.

Brunner said the mismatches ``may well be used at the county level unnecessarily to challenge fully qualified voters and severely disrupt the voting process.''

The Ohio Republican Party argued that the 2002 Help America Vote Act, known as HAVA, requires Brunner to share the mismatches with county boards so they can investigate potential fraud before counting votes.

Republicans faulted Brunner for her ``steadfast refusal to provide the HAVA `mismatch' data to the county boards of elections in a meaningful way.''

In its decision today, the Supreme Court said it wasn't addressing the underlying question about Brunner's duties under HAVA.

Court Order

The Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had upheld U.S. District Judge George C. Smith's order on a 9-6 vote.

More than 660,000 new voters registered in Ohio this year, many of them motivated by the chance to participate in the state's contested March 4 Democratic primary between Obama and New York Senator Hillary Clinton. While the state doesn't require party registration, Obama's aides say their party has a significant edge among new voters.

In Ohio and other states, would-be voters whose eligibility is in doubt can cast provisional ballots, which will count only if eventually validated by election officials.

The case is Brunner v. Ohio Republican Party, 07A332

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